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Ugh, I need to move it on to GitHub...
It's been 8 years since I took over from XPero (wow...). Thing is, the project isn't needed anymore - Windows 8 and 10 are already fairly consistent - and the new aggressive Windows Update and Windows File Protection systems make it harder to resource-patch Windows' system files.
Send me a PM if you'd like to move everything from my private TFS to GitHub. I'm too busy right now

So uhm, "hi"... What's the current status of Windows 7 thesedays? Are many GUI fixes still needed? I use Windows 8.0 and 8.1 a lot at work and I don't feel there is anything I can do there - all of the 2000 and XP-styled resources seem to have gone now, which is good. All that remains is the Metro environment everyone hates, but that's fixed with Stardock's utilities or the free stuff that's available, like Classic Shell / Classic Start Menu.

With respect, xpize 4.7 does not support XP SP3 or XP x64 at all... just saying Patching I386 files itself is a temperamental process and cannot patch as well as a post-install run (e.g. making registry changes). For this reason, I'll remove I386 patching from the next release, if there is one. Also, I think it's better to have trustworthy and unadulterated installation images.

I've looked into this and cannot identify the cause. Windows handles HTML files specially anyway (e.g. if you have Microsoft Word installed, if a *.html file contains certain <meta> elements then the file will have the Word HTML icon instead of the standard HTML file icon). For this, and other reasons, I strongly suggest running xpize after you've installed Windows, rather than patching a CD image. If I ever do release a new version, I'll remove the I386/CD-image patching feature because it doesn't work as-intended.

The files modified are too numerous to list here, sorry. I suggest that you uninstall xpize then re-install, but click on the "Advanced" button and uncheck the files you want to preserve (e.g. for winrar, etc).

The cursor pack included in xpize is from the Fedora project (used under license). The "Denied" cursor is the Skull and Crossbones. I disagree with the design, I think it's inappropriate, but I don't have a suitable replacement. If you revert back to the standard XP cursors you'll get a "Forbidden" symbol (a circle with a line through it) if you perform the same action. This is because you cannot drag and drop files onto the Windows Explorer chrome area.

You'll need to dump the raw binary DIALOGEX resource to disk, then use a tool like Visual Studio's dialog editor to make the changes and save it, then include the replacement with the following XML <patch name="Foobar" path="%windir%\system32\somefile.cpl" enabled="false"> <res type="dialog" name="1" lang="1033" src="Base\Windows\system32\somefile.cpl\1-1033.dialog" /> </patch>

Changes to the Date and Time control panel are disabled by default, there is an option to enable it during installation. It's disabled because a large number of users complained about it crashing the control panel. Click the Advanced button during installation, it's located under xpize > Icons > Control Panel Applets and Administrative Tools > Res patch: timedate.cpl (the 2nd entry)

Not that I'm aware of, no; sorry However the XP art style is not hard to reproduce (it's one of the few advantages to XP's style); if you're after only a handful of icons then it shouldn't be a problem to contact a competent vector artist and get them to do reproductions for you. Maybe find one on Guru.com or something, it shouldn't cost more than $20 or so.

IE9 already has Windows 7-styling, though there are still a few errant resources lying around (like the 'enable autocomplete' animation). IE9 has a hidden 'large buttons' mode, so I'm thinking of exposing that as an option in a possible xpize settings application.

I'm afraid there aren't any. The main reason is that Windows XP doesn't support icons larger than 128x128. The second reason is that 256x256 icons were never made. Most of the high-resolution icons in xpize were donated by the deviantArt user werewolfdev and the raster graphics he supplied were all 128x128 PNG images. You can download them from his dA gallery. I've no doubt that he has the vector originals he created somewhere on his computer, however he never published them, and we never needed them. You could always ask him, of course (but he isn't online much, there was a time when he didn't log-on to deviantArt at all in 2008 and 2009). Right now it says he last logged in 5 weeks ago.

I'm feeling very disappointed in myself for a: not keeping you guys informed, and b: not devoting enough time to the project. Here's my current situation. It's just words and promises, but I hope you can trust and believe in me that you will see something eventually: * From now until next week I have to devote my life to writing my undergraduate project dissertation. * Immediately after that I need to study and revise for my final undergraduate examinations, the actual exams run from mid-May to mid-June. * After late-June I will be a free man. Beautiful sweet freedom I haven't felt since I finished High School. I have a great many proejcts to work on If you google "trojan.fakems" you'll see that Malwarebytes frequently incorrectly identifies files as that malware. There isn't much documentation about "trojan.fakems", so my guess is that Malwarebytes flags any system file that purports to be from Microsoft but doesn't match a "known" file, in this case xpize'd Windows files are no-longer identical to the files they should be. On the other hand, this is the first time I've heard of this problem. It's quite possible you really are infected with malware. I personally recommend Microsoft Security Essentials over all other forms of AV (especially Norton), give it a try and see if it reports anything. It also might be worth uploading the file to various free online file scanner services (Kaspersky has one).